Who needs Glasto?

Kate…

The other two have packed up their little rucksacks and taken themselves off for a weekend of dirt and debauchery at Glastonbury, so I’m holding the fort at the land. It’s a tough life being a martyr. The rain has given me a helping hand with the watering, mind you.

Anyway, who needs Glastonbury when you’ve got an allotment to tend to? Today, I had all the mud, music and weeds a girl could ask for, so I cranked up the sound on my iPod, cracked open my thermos flask, crawled around the land and whipped up a frenzy with my trowel.

It took me four, painstaking hours to remove the thistles, ground elder, nettles and switch grass between four rows of carrots, parsnips and beetroot plants. My knees are feeling a bit sore now – I think I might need to invest in one of those fancy knee pads I’ve seen in those sensible, practical shops – but I must admit, the rows do look much better now that they’re weed free. I’ve made a note to make sure that we try not to let the little so and so’s get so big next time. Perhaps each of us will have to take responsibility for weed control for a certain patch of the allotment?

I’m going to put in a few hours tomorrow too and get a few more rows done. I’m developing a grudging respect for the ground elder. It’s the way it winds itself around the nearest thing to it and tries to strangle it that really impresses me. Unwinding it from the veggies we want to live is a delicate, but strangely satisfying job.

I’m a bit worried about Katy’s Kiwi plant. It’s already looking a bit ropey. On a positive note, we appear to have a few gooseberries appearing on two of the bushes and some redcurrants are beginning to traffic light their way to red. Even the rather dead looking tomato plants are beginning to bear fruit.

The sunflowers are sprouting up and the runner beans are sprinting up their frame (which is reminiscent of the Wicker Man). The herb garden is positively bushy. Its resident gnome is looking a bit overwhelmed.

As I packed up my tools into the boot of my car, I had a brief chat with a gentleman who had also put in a few hours worth of hard graft. He said that he doesn’t think there is such a thing as a weed that can’t be beaten. Keep scything off the top of the switch grass, he said, it’ll give up in the end. I’m going to take strength from that as I tend to my nettle stings this evening!

Right, I’m off to eat my dinner, which includes a salad made from rocket from the land. It’s got quite a zing to it. It beats a supermarket salad any day.